Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was seen by more than 38 million people.

Nielsen Media Research said more people watched Obama speak than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the final “American Idol” or the Academy Awards this year. Obama talked before a live audience of 80,000 people in Denver.

His TV audience nearly doubled the amount of people who watched John Kerry accept the Democratic nomination to run against President Bush four years ago. Kerry’s speech was seen by just over 20 million people.

Much to the chagrin of the John McCain’s campaign handlers, those people all got to see the real “real Obama” — unfiltered, not through the distorted lens of their Rovian B-team attack ads — and learned that he was anything but a pampered empty suit:

in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton’s Army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

Just as importantly, though, they learned what Obama was committed to do as President: changing the tax code to reward work and job creation instead of existing wealth, expanding access to health care and quality education, and the Kennedyesque challenge to end U.S. reliance on Mideast oil in 10 years.

It’s a stark contrast to the shallow, identity-based politics being played by the Republicans, exemplified in John McCain’s announcement of his vice presidential nominee today.

The GOP presidential message boils down to this: Vote for McCain because he was a prisoner of war. Vote for Sarah Palin because she’s female. Vote for them because of who they are, not because what they’ll do.

If you have the crazy notion that this country has enough serious problems that some important things need doing… well, as Obama said, “you’re on your own.” Unless, that is, you vote for change.

I have a feeling that most of those 38 million-plus people who watched Obama speak last night were of the opinion that voting for a president because of what he’ll do is exactly the change we need.

(John Kerry and Barack Obama at the Democratic convention yesterday, via Reuters.)

Photo 2:

(Joe Biden at the podium of the Democratic convention, via Agence France Presse.)

(Barack Obama watching Hillary Clinton’s convention speech, via Agence France Presse.)

Here he is tonight, spitting reflecting on Hillary Clinton’s speech to the Democratic convention:

Clinton had to somehow convince people that she honestly thought Obama was ready for the presidency. But something stood in her way: Her words.

– Dec. 3, 2007: “So you decide which makes more sense: Entrust our country to someone who is ready on Day One … or to put America in the hands of someone with little national or international experience, who started running for president the day he arrived in the U.S. Senate.”

– March 2008. “I know Sen. McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.“

I know, I know — you’re shocked that a now-famed McCainiac like Fournier found a way to work some out-of-context “praise” for John McCain in reporting on a speech that focused on all the things Clinton and Barack Obama are for, but McCain is against (as Hillary herself repeatedly pointed out during the primaries, even as she competed against Obama). For example, Clinton said:

We need to elect Barack Obama because we need a President who understands that America can’t compete in a global economy by padding the pockets of energy speculators, while ignoring the workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas. We need a President who understands that we can’t solve the problems of global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies while ignoring opportunities to invest in new technologies that will build a green economy.

But those weren’t the words Ron Fournier was interested in — he cared much more about stray remarks from six or eight months ago. Not once in his article, in fact, does Fournier concede that Obama and Clinton favor many of the same policies… in other words, that she might back Obama not merely because he defeated her but because they both sought to achieve the same goals for this country.

Because what Clinton and Obama actually believe isn’t important to Fournier, any more than he gave a flying fig about Clinton’s actual speech last night. His intention is to distract readers from what she said, to disrupt what Clinton and Obama are seeking to achieve by imposing his previously-formed opinions on the event.

In a “news” story. For the once-famously objective Associated Press.

But if Fournier has to take them down, too, along the way, he will. After all, he’s got a candidate to get elected.

(“Ron Fournier’s Notebook” image above by yours truly. Thanks to Ego-Box for the hand-drawn hearts.)

Via Reuters: “Michelle Obama stands onstage with daughters Sasha and Malia after her speech, as U.S. Senator Barack Obama talks to them by live video feed, at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.”

I sense that some thought balloons are in need of filling…